MMA Fighting - UFC 284 Post Show | Is Islam Makhachev World's No. 1 Fighter After Beating Alexander Volkanovski?

Episode Date: February 12, 2023

Following a memorable UFC 284 fight card capped off by a classic between Islam Makhachev and Alexander Volkanovski, MMA Fighting's Mike Heck, Shaun Al-Shatti, and Jed Meshew recap the action from Saturday night's card in Perth. Follow Mike Heck: @MikeHeck_JR Follow Shaun Al-Shatti: @ShaunAlShatti Follow Jed Meshew: @JedKMeshew Subscribe: http://goo.gl/dYpsgH Check out our full video catalog: http://goo.gl/u8VvLi Visit our playlists: http://goo.gl/eFhsvM Like MMAF on Facebook: http://goo.gl/uhdg7Z Follow on Twitter: http://goo.gl/nOATUI Read More: http://www.mmafighting.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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and we are here to recap all the action, including a classic main event between Islam Makachev and Alexander Volkanowski. Close competitive fight in the end. Makachev gets it done via unanimous decision. Yaya Rodriguez, a career performance to win the interim featherweight title. Jack Delamadalena.

is for real, for real. And Alexander Volcanowski, his stock rose even in defeat. And we have a lot to digest following UFC 284. So thank you for joining us on this live post-fight show. I am Ikech, joining me. Shaheen Al-Shadi once again. There he is.

And Jed Mishu, the man who began the festivities, began the talking with a fiery take. And we're going to start right there. Jedmishu because people's pre-fight show, I introduced you and you said, I have a take, Mike. I've been waiting to get this off my chest. I've been saying a lot of things that people have been not very agreeable with. And then you dropped something to the effect of Islam Makachev is just going to dump truck Alexana Volkovsky tonight.

He is just going to dump truck him. He's going to run him over. This fight will not be competitive in any way. And turns out we got a very competitive fight. Islam Makachchev did win, but Volkanowski proved that he could hang. And it was a very fascinating fight in the end. So I guess my question to you is, what would you like to say for you? Explain yourself.

Explain yourself, Jed. I love this. Holding Jet accountable right away. I'm super here for this. Look, I'll start by saying hand up. I was wrong. I felt so good about that statement after round one. I was like, oh, this is it.

Because I didn't say that he was going to like completely destroy him in a way that is on. But it was like it's going to be like the olivera fight where he is going to win every moment of this. And it's just going to be one way traffic. And frankly, round one, I was like, feeling pretty good about that. Because the moment they engaged, like the moment that contact was made, Islam got his chain off. He got to position. Volk went to the cage. He wrestled him down.

He did a weave, got their arms, got a position. took it, held the back, threatened chokes. It's like that first round was exactly what I thought the fight was going to be like. I just thought it would repeat until such time as Makachev got the finish. And it didn't. And that's a full credit to Alexander Volkinovsky, who made a really good adjustment. He fought the hands a lot better. He didn't concede the positions at all once those engagements started happening.

He really made sure to not let the leg entanglements for Makachev get him down. to continue that progression. And he was able to turn and do the thing that I didn't think he could do, which he wasn't able to do at two points in the fight that ultimately hurt him tremendously in this fight. So I was totally wrong in the fact that Volt showed up and was like, oh, I can do this and showed that he has the capability. We'd never seen anyone do it before, and I didn't think it could happen.

Full credit to Alexander Volkinovokovsky. Still wasn't enough, though, Mike. Still taking that out. Well, because the lightweight champion has a name, and it is a Mockachev. Let's go, baby. There you go. Shaheen, a lot to take away from this main event. It's become very divisive, which I didn't think it would be.

I thought we were at all. Shocking. And I know this is the, I know this is the M.A. community. I thought, for once, the vast majority of people would just celebrate this fight for what it was. A very competitive fight, very compelling in that both guys stocks rose. We got everything we could have wanted. out of this main event. This is the best case scenario for everybody because most

people thought Machachev would win. A lot of people thought he I don't know if they would win as far as what Jed said, but they thought Makachchev would convincingly win this fight and Volkanowski had his moments and like I said before we went and hit record here and went live

if one of the judges scored that fight 4847 for Volkadovsky, it would not have shocked me in the slightest. So what was your biggest takeaway from all of this? Was it Volcanowski is just the dude? Is it Makachev is tough as hell? What was the biggest question you got to answer tonight? Biggest takeaway is tough because to me there were a lot, this is a very multifaceted sort of takeaway situation from this fight, right? Because so much happened, so many

expectations were surpassed. I mean, it was frankly just the best fight we might see in 2023. I don't know, obviously it's early, but certainly the front runner. But biggest takeaway from me is just how can you not come away from that fight ridiculously impressed by Alexander Volcanovsky, right? Like, where else could we even start? Because what, what a fighter, what a man, what a champion. Like, if you watched that main event and came away, anything less than amazed by the talents of who we have as the featherweight king at this point, like, I just don't know if we can agree on what we're watching because that man was doubted at every turn coming into this fight. It was not supposed to be a competitive fight, as Jed made very clear in everything that he said the lead-up and then again

today. And it was so competitive. It was incredibly competitive. It was by far the most fun superfight we have ever had in UFC history. We've had seven of these now, these champion versus champion fights. This was easily the most competitive, wildest swings of back and forth momentum that we have seen of any of the seven so far. And this stat alone says it for me. I mean, right, coming into UFC 284, Charles Olivera was the one who landed the most significant strikes on Islam Machachev more than anyone else that had in the UFC throughout that seven, eight year run, has been on. And his tally was 19 significant strikes. That was the most anybody had landed. Volkinovsky blew that number out of the water. He put up 70 on Islam. He put up 164 total

strikes on Islam. He showed off better defensive chops than anyone really has against this Dagestani wrestling assault, just period, generally. I think he just blew away every expectation that almost all of the smartest people I know in this sport had for him. He dared to be great and he came out of this night looking better than ever before. And anyone who's dinging his stock at this point, like, y'all can miss me with that. You guys can kick rocks because I think there's a very, there's a very real question now, at least in my mind,

of like what does pound for pound actually mean? Right? Because I have Islam now as my number one pound for pound. I don't know that I feel great about it. Because in my mind, I feel like I just watched the best fighter in the world and his name was Alexander Volcanowski. And like you put that by pride rules, Alexander wins that fight.

You give it another round or two. I think Alexander probably wins that fight. He felt like he had a lot more left in that tank at the end of that fight. I don't know, man. I come away ultimately. My number one takeaway, all credit to Islam. We can talk a ton about Islam today, but my number one takeaway is, my God,

Alexander Volcanowski is damn good at this sport. Maybe it's just me, but I'm glad the fight played out exactly the way that it did because I had questions and I had things that I wanted to see on both sides. and I feel like I got everything that I needed. Wanted to see what Volcanovsky would do in tough spots. I wanted to see what Mokachev would do in tough spots because I wanted to see how the fight IQs would play out over time.

And we haven't really been able to see that with Mokachev because he's just been able to use it right away and been so dominant that he hasn't had to make any adjustments in a fight, really. And tonight he got to do it. And it was awesome. And Volkanowski proved his medal on the ground and would take down defense and landing strikes and Mokachev showed a lot with his striking as well.

So, Jed, coming away from this outside of, you know, you're putting your hand up and admitting you were wrong, but Mokachev won. What was the biggest thing you took away from this fight? Like next week when someone asked you about that fight that they didn't watch, that they missed out on because Connor McGregor wasn't in it, what was the biggest thing that you took away from it?

This is the two best fighters in the sport. It was Bill does such coming in? I think it's true. I, Islamychev is never going to get his due from this fight. And that's okay. That's sort of the calculus, right? He is fighting the smaller man. And so by definition, everyone is going to rate what he accomplished less.

It is, that's a very weird dichotomy going on there, though, with all of the people who have nothing but praise for Volcanowski, rightfully so. you should praise that performance. It was unbelievable. Even in failure, it was a great, great effort, tremendous performance. He showed a ton really well-schooled, all the things you would hope to see from the best fighter in the world

fighting the other best fighter in the world. But at the end of the day, Islam Makachev will not get the credit he deserves for also doing all the same stuff because of the narrative before the fight and because he's the bigger dude. And because the narrative before the fight was he's going to take him down and kill him.

And that's just going to run. And that's it. And I was part of making that narrative. I was going to say the narrative set forth by you, man. No, well, I didn't set it forth. I was part of it. Many people set forth that narrative. But because that narrative is the narrative,

when Volcanovsky is able to defend against that, even though he did give up like eight minutes of control time and at his back taken, but he was able to not succumb. The story is that instead of, guys i don't i don't know if we're i don't know if people are ready to hear this um it is a mokachev just outstruck alexander volkinovsky for most of that fight and it was not it was not pretty i'm not here to tell you it was like some classically beautiful thing but casey and i were talking during the post fight presser he machachev won because of both parts of the game

but if he doesn't have either it doesn't work and he sat volk down a couple of times he can continually caught Volt coming in with that left-hand counter. Islam Makach should have more success than Max Holloway did on the feet against Volkanowski. Max Holloway is largely considered one of the best strikers in the UFC and MMA, best boxer in the UFC, baby. And Islam did much, much more on the feet against folks than he did. And he's never going to get the credit for that. And that's okay.

But I do want to say we should all respect the hell out of what Islam did just as much as we should respect what Volk did. We should just respect that this was a kick-ass fight between the two best guys in the world. Which I didn't, again, I didn't think that's what we were going to get. It was awesome that we did. Not at all what I envisioned, but these guys are, I think,

head and shoulders above everybody else right now. Yeah, and the big, one of the things for me was for Volk to win this fight and I thought he was going to be competitive. I thought this fight was going to play out pretty similar where we could be looking at it like, I didn't think it was two-two heading into the fifth,

but it could possibly be two-two heading into the fifth. And I was curious to see how that fifth round would play out. And Volcanowski went out there and won that fifth round. But to me, Volk, I thought Volk had to be picture perfect to win this fight. And it probably proved true. I think Volk's going to go back and watch that one. And he even admitted it after the fact. Like, he made some mistakes.

He knew exactly where he made him without even watching tape. And Islam didn't have to be perfect to win this fight. And that showed as well. So, Shaheen, where do we go with Maka? Like, it's clear where Volcanossi is going to go. He's going to fight Yaya Rodriguez. It will get to Yair's performance and why that fight is a little bit is actually probably much more compelling than it was six hours ago.

But where does Mokachev go? Because in a meritocratic fair world, any Daryush is getting pulled out of any sort of negotiation to fight Charles Olivera. They're just going to sit him back for that. I actually don't know if that's going to happen or maybe Mokachev took enough damage where we can have some fights, let them. this division sort of play itself out a little bit and see if somebody emerges. But like, what does he do now?

Is he just kind of sit and wait and see how this division unfolds? Or do you just pull Darius out of any sort of Olivera equation? Or do you think the UFC will do UFC things and go with the guy who would probably sell a few more pay-per-views, maybe a Dustin Porier or something like that? It's a good question. And I think it's one that's going to be an interesting topic to just generally discuss over the next few days. But first, though, I do want to echo what Jed said, because I think it is important, right?

I think it is important to give Islam Mongachev his flowers for this fight, because it doesn't feel like he's going to get them, and it doesn't feel like he's getting them right now. And I want to just state, for the record, this man defeated Alexander Volcanowski. Like, just that sentence alone. Ten years that man never lost. 22 fights. And we just acting like nothing, just acting like it's not a big deal. Dude beat Alexander Volkanowski.

And he legitimately beat him. Like people can be crying robbery, scorecards, whatever. I had it three, two for Mockachev. It's not a robbery. That's stupid. I had it three to two for Mokachev. That to me was the right scorecard. You can take nothing away from this man

because that is one hell of a feat and there is no hyperbole you can put on it. That's too much. Like that cannot be an understated feat that you, again, he defeated Alexander Volcanowski. And he looked incredible, frankly, for most of this. Like he was showing sides of his game that I did not expect it.

I didn't know he had. as Jed was saying, his striking was phenomenal for like most of this fight. Obviously, he gets knocked down at the end in round five, but up into that point, he was winning the striking battle with Alexander Volcanovsky. And that round four level change he had, which actually really basically kind of swung the fight, right? Because if he doesn't win round four and he doesn't get that level change, he doesn't win that fight on the scorecards, that was one of the most beautiful things I've ever seen in the cage. Like that was just utterly gorgeous.

That was George St. Pierre in his prime. Like Islam Mankachev has made this lightweight division, his own personal play thing, for basically seven years at this point. And man, I don't, it's hard after what we just watch to see anyone out there who's going to give him a more well-rounded or more hard-foot fought fight than Alexander Volcanowski just gave him on Saturday with the tools that Volkanowski is him. I think Banyl Darayush, as you said, Mike, he's probably the best chance. I'm so excited about that fight.

That is to me is probably the best one out there for Islam in terms of really tough matchups. You look at that mix of just the same type of grappling savagery that Bineal has. and then also the power that he brings in sort of the wildness to a stand-up game. I could see that being a really fun fight and just some of this transitions and scrambles, how does he deal with the wrestling?

Because it does kind of feel, too. I saw Casey, you say this on the post-fight presser, or maybe it was Jed, what was one of you guys? It does kind of feel like the game is maybe catching up a tiny bit to this Dagestani form of wrestling. Not a lot, because it's still so overpowering and it's still proving to be very successful, but it does feel like people are figuring out a tiny bit,

and I would love to see how Boneil goes against that. but man you just got to remember that like the lightweight title consecutive defense record is like three right like we just Islam just got one number one's in the books third of the way there he's a third of the way there and like to me that was probably the hardest one he's going to get unless you throw Darush in there and it seems like the UFC is hell bent on not giving Daru a title shot so it feels like we might just be at the beginning of a record breaking title run that we're about to see to answer your initial question Mike, I think Darush should get it.

I don't know if he will. Like you said, I think Darushio Al-Avera fights probably what's going to happen. Maybe the winner of that will get it. But also, there's just generally some weird stuff in the air. And who knows if somehow this drags on long enough to where Michael Chandler or Connor McGregor can sneak in there because that's what the UFC does. So this whole division is messy right now.

It doesn't make a lot of sense with which direction this is going to go. But in a just world, it should be Benil Darush. Because that, to me, is the fight now. That is the one I am most interested in seeing how Islam matches up with Benile Darius because otherwise this division just looks like everyone else is competing for second place. Dude, especially after that fight too. That was the thing I was saying on the presser like, I think people are catching up to the Degas Ensemble because that's how the sport works.

You see dominant fighters get by doing the same things. They don't like overhaul their style and it takes a while but more and more people see it. There's more tape. they figure out new ways to attack it, etc. And then that all just becomes the thing. So I think that's definitely happening because you take Habib and Mogachev. They've been at the top for close to a decade. People are going to adapt and overcome.

When we saw Volk make those adaptations in this fight, and Benyodorir, you watch that fight, or is going to watch it tomorrow if he was asleep. And he is going to look at the success that Volkanowski had with fighting the hands when they were in those transitions. How he was able to go to the cage, which is where that style succeeds so well from a chained attack,

and turn his body in and get the position there and think, I can replicate those things. Volk didn't do anything that no one else could do. He just did it because no one else could do it, if that makes sense. Like other people are physically capable of combating in the same way. I think Darius has got some new tools

in the belt now for this. I want that fight so bad. Do the thing, B'Neill. Do the thing. Also, I think it's okay to do B'Neil Charles Oliver. They shouldn't. They should just pull B'Neal and do it because he deserves a title shot. But I think Beneal beats Charles O'Levara,

and then this becomes like a tier one elevated event when it's that. But I completely agree with both of you. Islam Makhachev deserves credit for this performance. There's a hard, grizzled fight. And I saw some people being like, well, you're swayed by the crowd. It wasn't as good as, I'm telling you right now, that fight is going to age like a fine wine. It may not be the fight of the year this year, but like three, four, five years down the line, we're going to look very, we're going to look back fondly on this one.

And especially when we look at the legacies of these two guys and what we learned about each of them in this fight, it's going to age very, very well. So maybe you're mad that Volcanovsky didn't win. You wanted to see a historical moment. you wanted to see something really cool happen. And that's great. That's sports. We want to see that happen.

But in the end, both guys deserve their flowers. Islam Makashchev deserves his. He won the fight. He dug deep when he needed to and got the job done. He's the lightweight champion of the world. And in my rankings, he will be the number one pound for pound fighter in my rankings. I thought about it. I think it's going to be like Sean and Jedbolt talked about.

It's going to be something we have to think about. Maybe we're not all that confident. Plus when John Jones fights March 4th, if he goes out there and just runs over Cyril Gahn, that's another interesting name in the conversation. But right now, Islam Akachev, you said at the post-fight press conference, you're the best fighter in the world.

And right now, February 12th, 2020, you are the number one pound-for-pound fighter in the world in my book. So congratulations to him. Congratulations to Volcanowski. Great fight. Boating for flight 246 to Toronto is delayed 50 minutes. Ugh, what? Sounds like Ojo time.

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but whatever he did, he needs to keep doing it because that was an incredible performance. And I want to give Josh Emmett a lot of credit, too, because he took some vicious shots, early and often. He got kicked in the body over and over again. And Yaya just kept it coming. And Josh Emmett, to his credit, fought his ass off and tried to stay in this thing.

In the end, Yai was just too much. And he looked spectacular, Sean. You watched the fight with us during the watch party. A few hours later, how do you look back on this performance from Yayae Rodriguez? Because I think this man just broke out altogether. No, absolutely. Absolutely. Absolutely, Mike. And I want to get to that, but really quickly, just one last point on Volcanovsky, the main event that I want to get out there before we move on. Because to me, this Perth crowd, can we talk for a second just about this Perth crowd? Because this Perth crowd was unbelievable tonight. They made this fight, this main event, feel as properly big and gigantic as it was supposed as it should have felt. The swings of momentum, all of it, they were riding and dying with the whole thing. If the UFC does not take Alexander Volcanowski back to Australia, what are we even doing at this point? Because that man felt like a superstar

tonight. He felt like the biggest star in the sport tonight amongst that crowd. And if you do not take advantage of that every time out at this point and capitalize on what you clearly have here, like what are we doing here? Try to promote this a little bit because that guy has to fight in Australia again. Whether, whether it's the next fight against the Ayer or whatever, you just have to bring Alexander Volcanowski back to Australia. That was tremendous tonight. When we get in all these apex events every single weekend. It's just this dead, dead environment, sterile environment.

You get something like tonight, and it brings you back alive. It really does, man. Like, this was special, this crowd tonight. For Yair, I think we just watched this man level up, right? Like, I think we just watch this man level up in a real major way. To me, this was a special performance.

Like, this was the type of performance, almost like we had been just waiting on for this guy. Because it almost felt like a culmination of something in a weird way, right? because he's not there, right? He's not at the final step. There's still one more step to go. But you just think about the journey we have been on with,

the journey he's been on. I don't know that there's a weirder journey that you can really point to in this division because this guy comes out of the ultimate fighter Latin America is the first winner of the ultimate fighter Latin America. And he has all this incredible promise. And then these past six years

have just been utterly bizarre, right? Like every single step of the way. Not one of them has been normal in a real way. right he suffers the big blowout loss in 2017 it's like almost like a come-to-jesus moment against frankie egger kills off every ounce of hype he has at that point gets cut in 2018 for like half a second because all this drama around the zabit fight whether he'll take it or not pulls off the flukiest of fluky victories ever where he's the one second away from losing against chan sing jung waste all of 2019 on this very weird jeremy steven staga then waste all of 2020 on injuries and this

really silly, silly, like Usada, whereabout suspension. Only fights once in 2021. It's the Max Holloway fight where, you know, that's a really competitive fight. I think it surprised people with how competitive it was, but it still felt like he was not at the level that people thought he would be. And then waste all of 2020 to do with this nothing fight against Brian Ortego that lasts all of four minutes and just ends with a fluky injury. And through it all, we just, it felt like we never saw him reach that peak that, or that,

maybe not that peak, but that point that we all projected for him, right? that point where he's just this incredible world beating fighter. And it felt like it finally kind of came out on Saturday. Like this was the best possible version of VIA Rodriguez we had ever seen. He was so dynamic. He was so fast and they're so creative. He's so big for this division. He was just so dangerous.

Like everything he was throwing at Josh was mean, man. It was absolutely mean. The only reason we even did this event, or at least to me, the only reason I was on board with UFC 284's made event was because Featherweight didn't make sense at the current moment we made it, right? Like there was not an actual contender for Alexander Volkanowski. So this made sense, hey, go do this while we figure out like a real fight for you. We got one now, man.

We got one now. Like, Yaya Rodriguez is that guy. He distinguished himself. He has established as himself as that guy. I am so supremely interested now in seeing the version of Yair we saw tonight go against the version of Vulk we saw tonight. Like that is a crazy matchup. And I love it. Like, we have been waiting for this for so long for Yai'er,

and it finally happened for him. And, man, it was impressive. It was really, really impressive. Yeah, he looked good. And, Jed, I think on paper, a lot of us picked the result. We all felt like Yairier had the makings of a guy who'd go out there and finish Josh. I meant that he was going to go out there win this fight.

And he went out there and finished. But I think he exceeded everybody's already lofty expectations for this fight. And I know he talked about on the pre-fight show that if Yaiir did this that and if he could thwart off Josh Emmett's wrestling throughout and be able to work off his back and create some opportunities for himself that this fight with Volcanovsky, if it happens, becomes much more interesting for you. Did that even exceed those expectations? Did this Yair Air performance actually exceed the expectations that you had heading in for a potential fight with Volkanowski with how he actually looked tonight?

Yeah, I'm more interested. And I was already very interested. interested. This is, I don't know, I don't even want to pick that fight right at this point. I'm just sort of tired of it. But this is why I'm totally okay with you just fighting the dudes in your weight class because if Volk and Yai'er fought tonight, that fight would have kicked all of the ass. Folk probably wins because Volk's maybe the best fighter in the whole wide world and maybe the best fighter has ever been. But that fight would have ruled because Yaiir is fun and dynamic and an interesting different. kind of challenger for Volk. And now we are going to get it and it's going to be awesome when it happens. And that was as good as Yaiyar could have looked. So now let's see. I'm going to pick Volk whenever they do fight, but I got to say, man, Yai'er presents some real, real stuff there.

He has the chaos clause in him that is a very necessary tool when you're fighting control merchants like you know Islam like folk and it is that because that man is lunatic he had Josh him hurt to the body and was like spinning attack into flying knee

that's the combo right now and lands it and then Imit just wears it and dumps him after it and then we get the finishing sequence that guy is crazy and it's awesome I hope he fights more his consistency has been tough for

him. But yes, give me Volcanovsky and look, they should take Volk back to Australia because that crowd was dynamic. It was awesome as everything. But if you're telling me, we can get Volcanovsky versus Yair and Brandon Moreno versus Allie Pants 3 in Mexico City. Sign me up, baby. So I will pay all the money, all of the money for that event in that atmosphere. Even at elevation, which is something I don't really love about fights when they happen there, that is an electric atmosphere that I would be super down for. We talked about this, Shaheen, that we felt Josh Emmett had the most to lose on this entire card because it took him a long time to get to a title fight.

He'd been calling for it forever since before the Jeremy Stevens fight. And that was a long-ass time ago he's been calling for a title shot. So like five, six years later, he finally. gets himself in a title fight. And this happens. And a lot was made about the weight cut and how he looked after the fact. I just don't know where he goes from here, Shaheen. Like, where does Josh Emmett go? Does he just kind of in fun fight territory? Just take what you can get. Does he move up? But he's already small at 45? Like, he's in a tough spot right now. I feel for the man. He fought his ass off tonight. Yair was just on one. It's nothing you can do.

I mean, I don't know that moving up is a real option for Josh Emmett, right? Like, we've seen the weight cut is really, really difficult for that man. He just doesn't have the body for 155. Like his physical frame, I do not think, would held up against a lot of those guys. You put him up against Islam, like, we all know what's going to happen there. I mean, where does he go? It kind of feels like, sorry to say, like, this is the one shot. Some people just get one shot.

And this was Josh's one shot. He's 37 years old. He's really old for the lighter weight. classes. Like, you do not find success in the lighter weight classes deep into your late 30s. Like, that's just not a thing that generally happens ever throughout the history of the sport. Man, you throw them against Movesar and Vloyiv. You give him against Ilya, you give him one of those guys. That's the one. That's the ticket. That's it. That's what, that's unfortunately what Josh's lot is probably going to be at this point, right? Like,

think about the Ilya fight. Think about that fight for just a moment. for this incredible crop of hyper violent talent that's coming up at 1.5. Like, that's sort of it. The Ilya fight, I love it. Like, that's exactly the type of fight Ilya needs. That's exactly the type of fight Ilya deserves. And unfortunately, that's kind of just what happens when you're a fighter in Josh's spot. You get this shot.

It doesn't work out. You got to go to the back of the line. You got to defend your spot against the young killers coming up. And there are a lot of young killers coming up at 145. Never in the history of this sport. will we see two men simply throw harder punches than Josh Imit Ilya to Poria talking just swings from the back hip and they get a whole 180 degree turn just every punch is a hurricane that's the only fight to make at this point Mike give me my Ot no point we have to go to Poria next yeah I think you're going to be sharing that out of no point with about 18 million other MMA that's That's fine. I will also be sharing a wonderful night of watching the hardest punches thrown in history.

If we could find a way to capture the energy that those two men throw off their body when they tornado into somebody with all of the vengeance of a thousand sons, we could power the world forever. Listen, I can't wait till they're chucking dischambeaus at each other over and over again. It's going to be a lot of fun. Dude, Josh, him, its swings in this fight were incredible, especially when he- Every ounce of himself, every single ounce. He, like, for like a half second was like, I'm going to try and fight smart. And then he got kicked in the body and was like, nope, just home runs, baby. Everyone, we're going for the fences.

Yard. He's Adam done, man. He's Adam done. Strikeouts are home runs. That's where it's going, baby. Oh, yeah. Love that. Him versus Ed.

Rob here. everything. That's, that's fun. I think you sold the world on anybody who was doubting that one. Jimmy Crewe or Lonzo Menofield, fun fight to start the main card. They fight to a draw. Kind of an unfortunate start. But it was fun as hell. Justin Taffa, Knox Pacaporta out of title contention probably forever. But I do want to talk about Jack Della. Knox about a title contention. That's being real generous, Mike. Real generous. I know. Come on. He's, he's our hero, and we, we, we wanted better for him. But, uh, Jack Della Madalana, Shaheen Al-Shadi. This guy's the real real. Is he not? No one at a performance. My goodness. This man is

for real, Mike Egg, for real. Uh, yeah, no one does that to Randy Brown. Like, like, no one's ever done that to Randy Brown. Like, he's gotten finished, but he's never gotten finished that fast. Like, Jackie, Jackie Three Names is just out of control with how, how good he's been so far in the UFC, right? Like, this is four fights in a row now, four first round stoppages, and it's starting to be against really good competition. And that's the type of fight. That's the type of special performance that we saw tonight that elevates you instantly into that you take that elevator right to the top 15 matchups.

Like you do not have to do the thing where we waste our time giving you five different matchups, seven different matchups to see if you're ready for the top 15. Like, no, he's going to be fighting a top 15 guy next and he should be. And I'm so hype for it. Like I wouldn't put him yet like, because we're, 170 is an interesting spot, right, where there's a lot of old war horses sort of mulling about the top, milling around, still kind of waiting for their first or second or third shot. And this is a log jam division for the most part for a while now. But then also you just have this other side of this

division where you got the Shaft Cat, you got the Hamzot. And now I put, I throw Madalena in that in the same group. I wouldn't put him quite yet with those two. Those two to me are still at a level above, but I have all the confidence in the world tonight that he can reach that type of level. This was a statement victory if I've ever seen one, and I am so in on this guy. This guy is hyper violent, and man, if I'm at 170, if I'm one of those old war horses at 170, I am not trying to fight that, man. Absolutely not.

But I'm not. And so, hey, hook me up with Vicente Lucay versus him, because that just sounds delightful. I need to see that tomorrow. That is the fight. That is absolutely the fight. but Jed Jack Del Metalena doing the damn thing. I feel like they, and I don't give the UFC a ton of credit

when it comes to building prospects, but I think when it comes to JDM, I think they've done a pretty damn good job. I think he's ascended at the right rate. Game Randy Brown, I thought it was a great matchup for both guys, almost perfect matchmaking. And JDM passed the test with flying colors.

So, yeah, I mean, what else can you say about the man? I'll let you try. Man, you guys are just, going to leave it out there. JDM is an enemy of the state. What are we doing? Going for a submission finish when everyone and their mother

had the CO prop and you're just going to break out BJJ for no reason? What are we doing here? You make that man flare flop and then you go for the club and sub? That's not part of your game. That's never been part of your game.

You're ruining me and all the people who were betting on first round CO. Absolutely devastating. restating loss in that regard. Yeah, good performance. Well, top 10 fighter, whatever. Think of the people, Jack. Think of me.

You didn't do that. He's got to give you more to think about it. He's throwing you off the set now. You don't know which way he's going to go. He's going to zig. He's going to zag. Yeah, what are you going to do next time? I will know.

I can't bet on him. The easiest bet's just been like, I don't know, JDM, round one, K.O. He just keeps doing it. I'm going to do that until it doesn't happen. And then I was like, oh, it's about to happen again. Look, this man felt. over. He's done it. And then

we get that, we get the choke. What the nonsense? Nonsense is what I say. Chad, after Loma lost a lot of money on this. Yeah, after Loma Loma Lvooley, German suplex Elyse reed into submission. That was sick.

I mean, nothing could have surprised you after that. I'm not saying, like I think most of us expected Loma to win that fight. And after seeing how the first take down attempt went the first round with the lease. We were like, oh, boy, this was not a good idea. And then she goes right back to the well and taps her. Not a lot of people saw that coming.

So this was just one of those nights where the results and the winners were all that surprising. We had a butt-CO. So, yes, it was very weird night. Chaos Clause was in full effect after that suplex. It was done. It really was. Jimmy Crude and Alonzo Minifield went to a decision. A decision.

An awesome decision. It was a great fight, but I would have dealt. best draw you're going to see all year. I would have been like naming rights on my kid that that fight is not going to the cards because I've seen both men fight before and somehow it did. Like the whole the whole chaos was in effect tonight. It made it really fun. So I want to ask you guys this.

I want to go back to just real quick on that fight. What did you think of the bark god or taking a point there? Love it. You loved it? Love it, man. Come on. That's the rules. referee actually enforced the rules.

Like, this is crazy talk. I know it's really hard to see that sometimes and you rarely ever see it. But come on, referee enforced the rules. Like, that's great. That's absolutely great. Just because we're in the middle of absolute total carnage chaos, doesn't mean the rules don't still matter.

Like, it's great. You got to love it. No. Yeah. And no, I'm only asking because I kind of, because we're doing the watch party and sometimes you miss these things. And it like from, I saw it like the last second.

And it didn't look like from what I saw that men of field actually grabbed the fence. so I was kind of puzzled by it and they didn't really go back to and show a replay of it so I didn't really know what happened there and there were other fence grabs that didn't get called there were multiple kicks to the ding ding

it was a painful night for a guy watching fights tonight no doubt about that but I was curious what you guys thought of the fence grab because even seeing it on Twitter some people were okay with the point but not the position change and all that stuff like you can only go certain directions so what did you think of

of how Mark handled that, Jed. Did you do it right? It's the right call. I have long been of the opinion that fence grab is the easiest penalty to account for. You don't penalize. You don't give a point. You just give a position. It would be very easy for Mark Goddard to have stopped the fight and been like,

hey, so you grab the fence and that tangibly effect of what would happen. We're going to go down. You're going to take full guard top position from the floor and we will continue from there. And that way you're not giving up a point in a way. way that feels but you are correcting the error that has always seemed very obvious and the fact that it's not common like it's not the protocol is weird but it's not the protocol and so that's fine i think that that is a totally okay point fair enough did did you agree with the bonus structure tonight jaheen i felt there's some sure we mentioned loma lukebu we had a freaking but kio a but

K.O. And we saw the gate numbers, record gate for all of Australia. And Australia's sports arena record was set tonight. And we did the usual fight of the night two performance bonus thing. I think we could have gone a little bit more all out, right? Like, what's going on here? I mean, it's just, it's ridiculous, right? Like, we all know it's ridiculous at this point. I echo the thoughts of coach Eric Nixik, one of the best coaches in this game, one of the best minds in this game. He tweeted tonight. I think the gate was $5 million or $6 million. I can't remember off the top of my head. He tweeted tonight like you're looking at a $5, $6 million gate and you're passing out $200 grand worth of bonuses. Like, come on, man. The move has obviously been to go

to finish bonuses. We should have done this a long time ago. Go to finish bonuses. It incentivizes finishing. It incentivizes more exciting fights. You said it, I think, one of you two said it before we started this preview show when we were just talking amongst each other. But like we handed out the same amount of bonuses for this historic, incredible sellout type of card that you would hand out next week for, you know, this one-fight apex card. Like, there's something wrong with that. Yeah, pretty bad, you know that, right? For sure.

Also, I know that this is a dumb argument to make, but all of the Jack Delamadena stuff, the jokes in case people, those are the comments are aware, aside, that wasn't one of the best performances. It should have gotten a bonus and I'm cool with it. But like, you're, you're telling me Justin Taffa's freaking sick counter K.O. Like a walkoff,

by the way. And the dope-ass line, which we need to give the shout out for of, he reach, I teach. Like, that's a sick line paired with the walk-off K. Lumuluk Bond me doing that.

The butt Kio. Like, J.D.M. is dope and cool. But his finish, while also dope and cool, was like the fourth best one on this card. So, dude, Jimmy, He probably lost like a year off his career tonight and didn't even get like a bonus for it.

Like come on, man. Like that dude went through hell and back and he didn't get a bonus for it. Like what are we even doing at this point? Yeah, very weird. Very, very weird. What are you going to do? Josh Kulbao had a nice submission after one of the aforementioned kicks of the ding-bing. Clayton Rodriguez has a sub one-minute knockout.

Amy Mularky fought a smart technical fight, which didn't expect that. happening against a guy like Francisco Prado, but it was a very smart decision. Yeah, it was really late, man. That fight could have been fun, and Jamie Miller was like, no fun will be had, sirs. I will say, though,

he calls out Patty afterwards. Feels like an actually decent call-out because he's kind of in that range that he could get that fight. I don't know. I kind of like the, I like the enthusiasm. I like the effort, the ambition.

That's all we ask from these guys. Yeah. G.C. likes the call out. He just didn't like the way he called him out. Or he's like, oh, I'll go knock him out. He goes, but you didn't knock out this guy. To be fair, Francisco Prado might be better than Patty Pimble. And I want to, obviously, Modestis Baccoscoskis, what a, what a freaking story he has been throughout his career. Comes back, big underdog as the lines open, they close out a little more even. and dude fought his ass off,

gets a big win over Tyson Pedro. Hold on. Let's not lost over that. Can you tell his full story? Because you told it on the watch party, and it was, it's an incredible story, frankly. So obviously we all know what happened.

He fought Cleoil Roundtree, got obliquicked, and I mean, he was badly injured. So he has knee surgery. He's released from the UFC. And I think I spoke with him like a week later. And he was not him.

himself. I've been talking about Desa Pocascus for years. Very happy, very jovial, just a very positive person in the space. And that interview, which you can go back into the archives and watch right now, he's just not the same guy. He's bummed out. And you understand where he's coming from. He's hurt. Got his UFC shot. He's always wanted to get there from Cage Warriors. Got there, goes one and three, has the tough loss to Cleo Roundtree, has the knee surgery, he thinks he's going to and he vows to come back to the UFC. He's ready to go. He's on the road to recovery. Then the surgery doesn't go well. And he has to get a second surgery, has no surgery along with that. So he had for years this big dry erase whiteboard and he wrote down all of his career

goals on it about, you know, we want to do this and the UFC, do this, do this, this. It's been filled for years. And after the second surgery, when he wasn't mobile or couldn't do anything, he actually took an eraser and erased everything. And it was just a blank dry erase board again. And then from there, he just got into a really dark place. He was drinking almost every single day, just to escape from reality of what his life was. And gets the second surgery, works with a physio,

doing physical therapy, and slowly but surely, he starts to get mobility in his leg. He starts to gain a little more confidence. and then the cap comes off the marker, goals start going back on the board, he's ready to get back, gets the fight with Cage Warriors, admittedly not his best performance,

gets a decision win, comes back six weeks later to fight for the vacant light heavyweight title. The title that was his that he never lost because he got the UFC call, looks fantastic, gets a brutal fourth round knockout, and he thinks there's a very good chance

I get this call again. So his manager calls him up, and he thinks it's the call. And his manager says, well, Cage Warriors booked you a title fight for March. And he's like, God, damn it. Well, I guess I'll have to keep climbing the ladder. And then later on that same day, he gets a FaceTime from his manager, Jason House. And Jason House tells him, basically says, what do you weigh?

Way about 220 goes good because you're fighting in Perth in two weeks. And it was just like, boom, emotions, everything happened. And then the dude just shows up tonight. And it was a very modestis, bucoccusi kind of performance where he has kind of a tough first round, turns it around, weather's a little bit of an early storm, and then just guts it out and grits it out. Very happy for that guy. I mean, that dude, no matter what people said, all the naysayers, people who doubted him along the way. And I saw it, he sought, and a lot of other people saw it. The dude did it.

He shot a lot of people up. He vowed to do something, and he busted his ass and he did it. And he deserves a lot of credit for that. So I wanted to make sure that was said. Good for him. Congratulations, Jimenez, Pekoskis, and for all the winners. What a story that is. Good for him.

A Baltic Gladiator. Incredible story. Very well told by Mike Haig. Good job, man. Thank you. Unwrap Holiday Magic at Holt Renfrew with gifts that say I know you. From festive and cozy fashion to Lux Beauty and Fragrance Sets. special selection has something for every style and price point.

Visit our Holt's holiday shop and store or online at Holtrenfrew.com. Okay, only 10 more presents to wrap. You're almost at the finish line. But first, there, the last one. Enjoy a Coca-Cola for a pause that refreshes. You know who else has stories to tell? The peeps. I'm sure the peeps have stories to tell.

Or questions to ask, which would be even bad. for a show like this one. Well, they have stories to tell. If the comment section is anything like the presser's comment section, people have been telling themselves some stories about this fight. Did you guys know that round four? Do you guys know round four should have been a Volcanovsky round? Oh, my God.

That was like an oft and loudly repeated comment in the pressers. Yeah. I love our comment section. They're the best. I'm just going to put that take down that level change in round four on repeat. That was just, I can't get over, how beautiful that was. That was just incredible. Would Islam have won if he didn't have a size advantage?

If not, would that imply he's not pound for pound? If I had weird, that's the debate. That's the debate, right? Like this, I feel like this fight has reopened like a really interesting, maybe not even interesting. I don't know that it's interesting. It's just the debate about pound for pound, right? It's like whatever the hell pound for pound actually is, because I don't think anybody understands what pound for pound anymore.

Because I'm questioning it myself, right? Because is it, hey, these two guys fought. Here's the result. One beat the other. Or is it, hey, if these two guys were the exact same size and not just the exact same size for 10 minutes on a Friday, but like actually were the same size, period, how would they do? Because I think probably it's maybe the second, but also they did just fight. So we have a result for the first. I don't know.

I have no actual answer at this point. It's your own. I ran a poll. I ran a poll and I asked who is the number one pound for pound fighter in the world? Islam Mahachif, Alexander Volkanowski, or other? What do you think the results are? I think Volcanovsky. I think Volcanowski's probably winning.

Volcanowski 53% Islam, 37%, and 10% with some others. Those are almost certainly going to be John Jones. John Jones. I would assume it's John Jones. Almost certainly John Jones is. So even Volcanozky with the loss, the majority of our listeners out there still have Volkanowski, including myself. Actually, I bumped him up to number one, which I think is a bit. I did not have him a number one.

Oh, wait, you had a Malkachev number one. I have Mokchev number one. That's right. And I actually put Volk. Wow. Wow. I forgot about that when I was looking at our ranking sheets. Yeah, he went up. So, yeah. Okay.

Am I crazy? Am I crazy? I don't know. Casey, you are in endless basket of curiosities and mysteries, my friend. I will never understand your brilliant mind, Casey. But yeah. I had Volkovsky at my number one spot for four minutes and 22 seconds. And I was like, I just can't.

Like, I just can't. Like, Mockachev won. Like, he won the fight. And you could argue he wanted four rounds to one. I scored a three to two. I mean, I don't want to die. Yeah, like, I had Machachev three pound for pound, and I bumped Machachev to one and dropped Volt to two.

So I didn't like switch them. But you can make a case for both guys. I mean, there's no doubt about it. I don't think anybody lost anything in this fight. Here's what makes this fight in this dichotomy so bizarre, right? It's because who won? Islam won, Islam obviously won. I think any reasonable person will say Islam one.

Who do you come away being more impressed by? I come away feeling more impressed by Alex. So, like, that's, I think, the weird split that we now have with this debate. Well, can I guess where I had them in my mind before the fight compared to after the fight? Yes, I would agree. I put it like this. I know this is a bit of an extreme example, but you put Demetri's Johnson against Francis Ngano in a fight. Francis Nagano wins, but he only wins a three-two decision.

I would still put Demetri Johnson as a higher. has a higher pound-for-pound fighter. That's basically an extreme, more of a ridiculous version of this fight. And in terms of my ranking. Does that make sense? It makes sense. I think it's fair. I'm considering doing it.

I don't know. I don't think I'm going to get there. I don't think I'm going to get there. I want to get there. But it just, I don't know. It's tough, man. I'm interested in where everyone's going to have Okunoski ranked in the lightweight rankings. No one's going to have them ranked in lightweight.

I don't think anybody's going to have them ranked in lightweight. He's not going to stay. If he, if he came out and said, hey, I'm going to stay here and do this, then I would, I would rank him somewhere. I put him number two, but I put him number two. I mean, that's fine. Totally. That's an absolutely defensive thing. So, Okinawki tonight is the second best light heavy weight, like, sorry, lightweight in the world.

But he's not ranked. No. If he at the end of this night was like, you know what, F this, I should have won this fight. I'm going to stay here. I'm going to do this again. I'm going to work my way back up. I give away my featherweight. I give away my featherweight.

I would rank him. met lightweight and I would put him probably at number two because this was just as close as anybody has ever come to to be in Islam. Okay. So he's just, second. Second. Okay.

Yeah. It's just, it's why I don't like these sorts of fights because this shouldn't be like a major factor, but I want it to be noted. Maybe it's not about this conversation, but the, he dared to be great has always irked me, like throughout history of like, well no shit he's a professional fighter and like every single person that's like well of course everyone's trying to do that and and this is the this is why

because it is entirely he dared to be great and did this and this was apparently a no downside fight for him like he no that's not true that's so not if if what we are saying or and it's not how that's going to work out i think by the looks of it but it may still work out we're like Volkovsky had the chance to become the greatest fighter in the history of the world and by losing he still is just the number one pound for pound and we're like that feels wrong like there should be some negative stakes somewhere in a fight I feel like and it doesn't seem like that's happening here but the thing is you're painting it as if there's two actual potential outcomes right one is that the one we got and one is that you know he comes to the greatest

fighter of all time. There is another outcome where the very narrative that you were talking about for weeks plays out and Volk comes out and just gets absolutely effing demolished and doesn't even look remotely competitive. And suddenly we're talking about this was the guy. This was the number one pound for pound guy. And at that point, hold on, hold on, hold on. Because at that point, he can never get that back. Like whatever level of mystique he carried into this fight, and I still feel like he comes out of it with because he performs so above expectations for everybody. If he comes out and just gets subbed in 50 seconds, like he is never, ever, ever getting that back, that level of just like, oh, this is an unbeatable dude.

Like he had to meet somewhere in the middle where he surpassed what I think a lot of people thought he could do while still not getting the job done to get this weird middle ground that we're now at. See, you might be right. I'm not here to say that you're wrong. I don't, I think that that is not how it would go. if Islam did what like I said he was going to do, the narrative would entirely be,

holy shit, Islam is that guy. Like, Islam is just unbelievable. And Volk would be like, oh, well, he's a featherweight, but he tried good effort on him. And so it's, yeah, but he wouldn't be getting ranked down for pound number one at that point. That's, which I guess what I'm saying. Like that, he wouldn't be getting that credit from people.

No, maybe not. For sure. I'm completely with you on that. And we've talked about this too, Jed. Like if that happened, we'd be, sure, we'd be praising his al-Machachev. We'd be like, damn, the dude did it. But on the same token, we'd also be, we would also think about it the way you thought about it if that were the case.

Oh, this is the stupidest idea. They should have never done this. It would have been like just a negative aftermath feeling. But in the end, I think like, instead of being divisive and mad about it, I think we like, everybody gained something. Like the UFC gained something. The crowd was on. fire, Volk stock rows,

Makachev's stock rose. Questions are answered by Volk? Questions were answered by Makachef. It's a great fight, a fight that's going to age well. I mean, what's anybody complaining about? I don't understand. That Volk 1. A lot of people are complaining is that Volk 1?

I'm shocked. I'm shocked. Sorry. A lot of... I'm not shocked. People like Volk more. And I think the crowd also played into it. Oh, 100%.

100% but the fourth like people were talking about he won the fourth what are you talking about he won the fourth round maybe round two is the swing round

he did nothing Mike he did nothing with the back and truce sure he had it but he did nothing with it he didn't advance the position to super back mount lunatics

can we agree that this is probably the front runner for fight of the year. Like this is the, at least the tone setter. This is the tone setter and you're going to have to beat this now. Like this is the one until you somebody. Well, as far as like, yeah, because the main event, super, the highest stakes you can have basically in the sport. And yeah, unless there's some crazy.

The tension all the way through was tremendous, right? Like midway through, it was goosebumps constantly. Feeling at the edge of your seat felt, feeling like something could happen at any moment. Was this? What if we just keep building, right? Because 283 was like the tone setter for Friday of the year. We knew it wasn't going to be it, but it was still like a really compelling fun main event. And now we get this.

And then we get Jones gone. And then Usman Edwards, like, what if we just keep going up and this year ticks all the ass? Oh, my God. Because all of those could happen. Like, you know, you know, you just did. You just, you just do it. This is like the 10th worst fight of the year or 10th best fight of the year. Like, ooh, God.

We had a store here. You know. what we're doing right now. We're just doing one of those things like, ain't no way this fight's going to decision. That's what we just did. We're about to live in a world where Valentina Shochenko, Lexa Grasso, is the third best fight of the year. Just put that, but the way this year is going, that's where we're at right now, my friends.

That seems unlikely. I got to say that seems unlikely. Hey, listen. Hey, man, so I was standing until someone's winning a fight against Valentina, too. It's unlikely until it happens. I mean, who was the frontrunner before this? Sabahamasi and Brennan Ward, one of the road to UFC fights from last week? No, they were.

They were. They were. Moreno Figgy was fun for as long as it lasted. Main event, double, yeah, this fight had it all. Was this fight if it was in the same year? Is this better than Yeri versus clever? No, no. No, God. Get out of here.

No. Okay. Nope. Just now. Nope. No. No. No.

No. I didn't think so either. I'm just like, you guys were like so high on this fight. I thought maybe I was crazy. There were maybe three fights that are better than Yuri Glover. Maybe. All right. How dare you?

How do you? I love Yuri. I'm like I run the Yuri fan club. Geez. What else are you guys? I lost it with a question. at it. Oh, yeah.

Given Islam's performance tonight, is his potential run at Welthewat seem harder now with guys like Usman, Edward, Shemayef, et cetera. Jed, I know you love this question. I know you love it right after Volcanowski moved up to 155 that immediately we're talking about Islam moving up to 170. I'm not jogging on the question. I'm just saying. I know how you're feeling about this.

there was a moment in the post-fight presser where I was going to throw something because I thought it was about to be like, well, I just beat the pound-for-pound fighter, let me go for a second belt, and I was going to lose my mind. I don't know. I think that it does damper that somewhat, but I'm not sure that that's fair because early on, I thought, and I want to re-watch the fight again to kind of have a more complex view of it. Julianne, I thought that the biggest difference in the fight or the biggest trouble Volkanowski was able to provide was the speed. He's pretty clearly faster than Islam in there.

And that was giving Islam trouble early. He found his timing later and really started to land with that and that helped a lot. But when Volt could just be faster and dart in and out and cut angles, that was tougher for him. That won't be the case moving up, certainly. but I don't he he did not just run roughshot over Volk with with strength and power like I thought would happen and that is a concern going up to welterweight I don't I never was super into him moving up in general because he is not an enormous lightweight he is certainly a big one I'm not here to say he's not but he's not as big as he was and I don't want I don't think he would do very well against Tom Zachimaev. or Shavkat Rockmanov. I think those would be horrifically bad fights for him.

So just stay in your lane, guys. Your lane is great. You can just be in it and you can motor on down the road and you can try and get three title defenses because almost nobody's done that and then you can try and get four and you can just stay at lightweight

and it'll be awesome. That's it. That's the thing, right? It's because like lightweight, pretty much like heavyweight, like there is a road there to just being the best ever in the UFC. And it's all like like Islam is already one third of the way there kind of, you know, like legitimate question for you on that. Is there?

What what does Islam have to do to have that title? Because I am, I think he has to do a lot with Habib's shadow there. But that is, that's, but that's the thing that we've talked about in other pods and other shows, right? We're like Fador, Fador leaves when Fador is at the crest of his run right after the Arlowski thing. He's considered the code of all time forever because. he's just been unbeatable for all these years, right? Like, Habib left at the peak. Aldo could have left at the peak and then be considered in a way very different

than he is considered now. So that's the thing that's difficult to reconcile with Habib. Successful professional boxer, Jose Aldo. Thank you very much. Hey there. Islam probably needs to stack up some numbers to get to that conversation,

but I think it's doable for him, right? Like, we just talked about it. Like, who's at lightweight right now that really scares you a ton? Like, would it shock you if he got five? If he gets five and the next closest is three. Is it five? Like, four I don't think works.

I think four, I don't think we'll get it. But I think once he starts hit, five gets, if he would hit five, then we start having actual conversation. Is it simply numbers or does it be any dominance to? Because that's why I always think. That's why I always. I think both. Both.

Okay. Because that's when people talk about Habib and everything, I was like, to me it's not the numbers. It's the dominance. It's like he just won. every minute. He had one close fight in his career. Yeah.

It was glacing t-bell. Look, that man was a building. It is hard to shoot a double egg on a building. Have you ever tried to take down your house with a freaking single egg running the pipe? That doesn't work. Okay, a couple more. A couple more, yeah.

Yeah, go more. I'm losing my vision is going crazy. I can't see anything. It's pretty late. It's pretty late. Oh, just some positivity. I like this. Hey, thank you.

My guy. First time tuning in. It's a great name. Thank you, my guy, Guy. First time tune in one of these post-fight shows. Great commentary. Well done, guys, tonight. Thank you much.

Thank you. Another comment, but do you see any truth to this comment? Volk created the blueprint for beating Islam. Did he? Maybe. Maybe a tiny bit in facets of the game, but I don't know that lightways can, there's a lot of lightweights can replicate what Vogue did tonight. What would be the blueprint?

Just being, I think there are, like you guys. No, I think there are things like, tricks that you guys like have mentioned earlier on, and we've mentioned in the show even, I think people are starting to figure out the Dagestani wrestling style just a tiny bit, just in terms of different ways to approach it, counters, transitions, etc., escapes. So maybe there's a tinge of that there, but, I mean, what lightweight's going to be able to do what Volk did just in terms of the actual approach he pan? Yeah, that's the problem. I don't think that this is true in general to the extent that here's how you do it, but I think he did show ways to attack it.

The problem is building on it because Volk did not win. So that is he didn't show a blueprint to victory because he didn't get the victory. and also being able to replicate it, like you can have the right game plan and it can still fail for any number of reasons. And so, but I think we're closer to that defeat than we've ever been. So, and honestly, maybe it's Volk in a year and a half or something.

Maybe we do it again and Volk makes adjustments and there we go. That could be the case. I got to say, I haven't thought about the idea of that, but just you even saying that, if that were to play out, that would mean a couple of things, right? That would mean Volk went back to featherweight, he beat Yair, probably beat an Arnold

Allen, probably beat maybe a potentially an Ilya Taboria or a Mofsari of Vloyv. And that means Islam has continued it lightweight and he probably has two more title defenses at that point. If not three, it is either tied for being the greatest UFC lightweight champion in all time or is the greatest UFC lightweight champion of all time, stat-wise. And if they then met at that point at those pinnacles of each other's career in this rematch of this fight that was incredibly close already once, Oh boy

And that was always the problem That's magic That's magic right there And that was always kind of The problem for me of this fight It's not the fight It's just the timing wasn't right For this fight

It was In terms like Because they meet in two years And they both continue That win streak And their own divisions Then it is the true Like super duper duper

fight And also being pound for pound No one versus two So I mean Because they just kind of both kind of recently got one versus two, but I mean, dude, Dana didn't even freaking show up for this fight.

It's supposed to be the best fight ever. He didn't even figure up for it. He had a lot of power slap to promote, man. Yeah, yeah. The man's busy. But like, but I will say to me, the timing for this did work because it did feel like both divisions were in weird places where

we didn't really have a next guy up. Wow. Super obvious. And you can throw out. You can throw out, Benil Darouche, but he literally spent his entire postpon interview being like, I'm going to fight 10 more people. I'm sorry.

All he did was beat a top five guy and he's on an eight fight win streak, but that's not clear cut enough for contender. That 15 second post-by interview is what decides everything. Ouch. Well, it certainly, I mean, it certainly didn't get Islam's attention because as soon as Islam won the belt, he handed the mic over to Habib who then called out Volcanowski to get into the Octagon. They didn't call out Benny Darius in that moment.

They called out Volkanowski, which to me, was actually brilliant. One, because of this pound for pound discussion and getting that to take that spot, even if it's just for a moment. And two, realistically, outside of like a Connor fight,

like the biggest fight for him, realistically at that very moment, was this one. It was this fight. Well, certainly, it was certainly bigger than Binald Darius, but that will be the case for all of time.

No. Like, no, I don't know. Like you said, though, You had a really good point on this show where if Benny goes out there and just beats Charles in a way that's pretty impressive. This gets to, I feel like this isn't, it's not going to be some giant fight. It's not going to be some giant fight. But it will be a very good fight that people are anticipating at that point.

Well, I was about to say, does it? Because if he beats Charles, he's going to do the same thing on the mic afterwards. He's going to shout out. He's going to shout out of charity and say, thanks, my Lord and Savior. He's not going to be interesting because it's not who he is. I have faith. I have faith in them. Me too.

Well, I still, I get what you're saying, but I still hate that so much of this freaking sport depends on that last 30 seconds. Not all the freaking hours of training and training and all. It's just who you call out afterward and know how much you stare at the camera and shake your finger. It's entertainment. Look at it. I get it. I mean, I know, I know, I know. I have a question for you guys.

Not for Casey's. Casey and already talked about it for you, Mike, you, Sean. In this world where this super fight happens down the road, right? Are you at all concerned or does it rub you at all the wrong way that in this scenario, Volk would essentially be winning featherweight title fights or featherweight fights to earn a lightweight title shot? You get the one, you get the one champ champ. But if he just goes back down, wins three at featherweight,

and then it's like, all right, I'm bumping back up, but I immediately get to get another lightweight title shot. Does that rub you wrong at all? Or you just like, F, it is totally cool. I wouldn't say that rubs me wrong, because I don't know that that's the way I would frame it, right? It almost feels like at that point, if this was to happen again,

it would be because both guys sort of cleaned out this next set of challengers for themselves. And then it would be like a very easy, like, okay, like neither of you kind of know what's next. Let's do this again type of thing. Like that feels like more like with that. that would be. But he will,

like, he would be getting two lightweight title fights without ever having won a fight in the weight class, which is some real like Connor McGregor-ish. So, right. I'm not saying it's all the way wrong, but it definitely irks me a little to think about it in that frame.

Well, two things come to mind. One, Volk had been talking about fighting for the lightweight title, which, like you said, every fighter, who is a champion right now,

has been asked by a, million different reporters, what it would be like to move up and fight for a second belt, even if someone like was about to fight for a belt. Oh, if you win this fight, you're going to move up to 155 and fight for this? Like that's just where the sport is right now. Volk didn't get on the mic. It's like, hey, Islam, let's go after he beat Max Holloway. No, he's like, all right, line him up and I'll fight.

Islam, like, let's get a champion at that point. So, no, he didn't. Well, I'm just saying. I get your point. Carry on. But Islam also called, Islam also called him out in that. big moment and Habib did too. You couldn't ignore it. It had to happen then.

And I feel like if it happens again, Islam's going to call for it again. He's going to be like, you know what? I killed everybody that I fought. The one dude that I didn't have that dominant win was this guy. My career's about to end. And I have the record and all this stuff.

There's one thing I have left to do and it's convincingly beat this Alexander Volcanowski guy. So Volk, let's go. You want to do the rematch? let's do it now. I think that's the only way it happens, honestly, is if both guys want it, and Islam sort of pushes that narrative forward himself.

If Islam's the one doing it, then I have less problems with it. But also, let me throw this out there. What if he just fights some lightweights because it would be dope to watch Alexander Volcanovsky fight Dustin Borier. Oh, it would just be really crazy and cool. And we could just do that.

And then he actually has a win over a top 10 lightweight And it would be really cool for everybody Let me just throw out a hypothetical here We're an interim lightweight title If we had not had the last lightweight title fight And the Volk that showed up tonight Was fighting Charles Olivera Would we be talking about a champ champ?

Probably Yes I think so probably right I don't know it's so different but I always thought that Olivera was like the best matchup for Volk in the lightweight division. So I would have picked him in that fight and I think it would have shown. Same. Chaos doesn't work on Volcanoxby. No, it doesn't.

No, it doesn't. No, it does. Chaos is not a super effective strategy against him. So it's tough. All right. Last question. Last question. It can be simple yes or no answer.

No. No. For the pod listeners, it's asking Volk versus Habib would Volk win. Yeah. I bet the pod listeners. I don't know, dude. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know.

I don't know. I think Islam is like, why would that be any different? I think Islam is a worse fighter than Habib. Yeah. Habib was a better version of Islam. You think what was the athleticism? Like he just. The athleticism is the most defining part of it for me, Casey.

like Habib was, it is never talked about enough. He was a legitimate athlete, like top four, five guys in the world athlete competing in MMA. And a lot of his game, like all of the parts that we say, ooh, Islam is a more technical version of Habib, that's all because Islam has to be because he is not a supreme athlete or is suburb's like, yolo, I can throw this right hand like the speed of lightning. and just blow your doors off. I don't have to be all that good.

And that's it to me. Like, Islam caught Alex a couple of times. I hope he would hurt him with that in a much more dangerous way, I think. Oh, all right, all right. Also, just the way he fights, too, Islam never, and it's a strength to him. Like, he has such great defensive metrics because he never gets over his skis. He got hit 70 times.

and that's the most he's ever been hit by like a lot. Also, funnily enough, that's like the least Volcanovsky's ever hit somebody in a fight that went to a decision by like a lot. Habib didn't do that. Like he would be defensively responsible at some points, but also like you saw him fight Justin Gehche.

He said, screw it, dude. This guy can't hurt me. Like he can hit me a bunch. I'm just going to get on him and see what goes down. I would have loved to have seen Mokachev try and do that a little bit more and just throw caution to the wind and get rough and see how it how it shook out i think could be would do it and it would have paid dividends for him but this could also just be

lionizing habib because you know he's the goat this is true we're good gentlemen well i think we're good ready fun night it was really fun night the ozies Aussie Aussie Ozzy Ozzie we needed it too we've had some we've had some weird ones lately this is a good one yeah i love we part that overperforms. I feel like the card overperformed. It definitely. It's a good feeling.

It's a good feeling. Spin, spin zone. It was good that the UFC didn't promote it because now we're less feeling great about it because it wasn't super hyped. Though if it had been, it would have lived up to it.

Hey, but the good news is we get to go back to the beautiful apex for the next two cards, which if you look at them right now, they are deep, stacked, and loaded. Whatever, that main event next week is better now. It is better.

It's going to rule. If you combine these next two cards, how deep of a fight card do you really have at that point? I see two fights on next week's card that are acceptable. And do the week after? Mid-event and Tatianis Juarez. No, not the main event, but give me Tatiana Suarez and Andre Munez is fighting the week after. Oh, that's right. Oh, Odei O's fighting.

We're going to run out things to talk about. We're going to run out things to talk about. We've wasted now. We're not going to, we have preview shows. We buried the lead. Happy 40th birthday, Mike. That's right. Thank you.

Thank you. And for my birthday presents, I'm going to be joined by my best friend in about six and a half hours to do matchmaking for this card. So join us for a live edition of Onsen next one at 11 a.m. Eastern. So thank you for watching.

Thank you for watching. all the coverage. Shout out to Jose Young's, the real MVP on the other side of the world for Casey, for Jed, for Shihina al-Shadi, I'm Mike Heck. Good night, everybody. Love you guys. Happy birthday, Mike. Happy birthday, AK. Oh, wait, Mike, Mike, sorry.

You too, AK. You're listening to the Vox Media Podcast Network.